Backer Beta Update 3: Patch Notes

[LordFey]

Shifter claws act as one-handed weapons while the Storm Blight weapon (Fury) acts as two-handed weapon, so they definitely benefit from those passives. But you don't really know that until you shift into that form and look at the weapon. So a little bit more explanation beforehand would be really nice.

[Boeroer]

That's right. A newcomer can never know this.

 

The only thing about the Shapeshifter that's sad for me is that Taste of the Hunt can't be used while shifted. It's so good...

[dunehunter]

That's right. A newcomer can never know this.

 

The only thing about the Shapeshifter that's sad for me is that Taste of the Hunt can't be used while shifted. It's so good...

I hope all beast keyword spell can be used by shifter, it makes sense here.

[dunehunter]

I love that you can pick up little titbits of information about the full game from these patch notes. It's renewing my excitement for the full release.

 

The Resolve change is surprising. I remember Josh (I think) saying that reducing the duration of hostile effects wouldn't work well because it would apply to enemies as well, so facing a Resolve 25 Dragon wouldn't be fun. Still, it seems like a nice, fitting addition to Resolve and I hope it works out well and that attributes are now finished.

 

Still no final graphics for Firebrand and Citzal's Spirit Lance

Oh that's a shame, I was hoping to see what their final form would be.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I'm very happy about the MIG/RES changes!

Ditto!

Stun/knock down chain dragon is a main strategy for dragons in POE 1, which is not fun to me. I like this Resolve change.

[thelee]

 

 

Thank you for the update and the detailed patch notes guys. Much appreciated!)

mini note: unedited notes also include changes from previous update

 

What is the auto-attack setting and how is it broken?

There were two things: you can't auto-attack a team member, and this one.

 

Attribute Cap of 35 - To prevent the effects of Attributes from scaling away into infinity, they are now capped to 35. We chose this number based on both where we wanted the influence of Attributes to max out as well as what we believed was within the reach of aggressive min-maxers.

Feeling strange about this one ^^ because:

- a cap of 100, would achieve the same thing, i.e. prevent "from scaling away into infinity"

- in PoE1 we could achieve up to 43 dexterity; although do note: it was not worth it

- hard caps do smell bad. Sometimes it's indicative that the game loses it's balance outside of certain range; and that the system can't handle it gracefully itself. No hard cap in PoE1 was a healthy sign in my book, and it was really well handled, as dropping attributes was stinging, while maxing them to the roof was affected by intrinsic diminishing returns; not to mention that there were often wise to smooth the spread a little: think of MIG and DEX both contributing to dps, and at a very simplistic level: 15x15 > 20x10.

It's no big deal though)

 

 

I was a lilttle skeptical of the attribute cap at first but 35 is pretty high -- that's about where the "soft cap" of effectiveness was anyway in the first game. If it were lower I'd have more concern but at 35 it seems almost more like a UI feature -- "it's ok, you can stop bothering now" -- and it might make character planning a little simpler and give the designers more room to play around with weird bonuses (like drugs, etc.) 

 

I mean I see where you're coming from and it's definitely the most interesting change listed but it might work out to be a good thing iafter all.

 

 

I'm almost positive the cap was introduced just as an arbitrary restriction so that Resolve could be allowed to reduce hostile durations meaningfully per point without worrying about degenerative cases of high resolve <snip>

 

 

I called it: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/172426990256/what-made-you-go-back-on-what-you-said-about-the#notes

 

"What made you go back on what you said about the Resolve changes concerning status ailments?"

JE Sawyer: "That’s in the patch notes. We capped Attributes at 35, which prevents percentile reductions from hitting 100%. At 35 Resolve, Hostile Effect Reduction hits 75%."

[Ancelor]

Without having played a single second of the beta I have to say, these changes seem amazing.

All in the right direction.

I can imagine that the game will take a lot of balancing even after the release but with this update the fundamentals seem to be spot on especially compared to the previous state of the betta.

Congrats and I hope the backers enjoy themselves

[MaxQuest]

I'm almost positive the cap was introduced just as an arbitrary restriction so that Resolve could be allowed to reduce hostile durations meaningfully per point without worrying about degenerative cases of high resolve (which JE Sawyer cited as a reason of why he was hesitant of resolve doing this effect). They could theoretically have gone up to 43 (any more and resolve would give >100% reduction), but i'm guessing the way resolve is implemented there are significant increasing returns (each additional 3% reduction is more of the remaining hostile duration). I haven't tried the new BB yet, so this is an assumption based on how intellect works.

Seems so.

Sure the cap could be higher, and points put in RES over 34 would just do nothing, unless attacker has a higher INT than 10. But yeah, it would probably rise extra questions and require a note or extended description.

 

On the other hand, it's kinda limiting. My 19MIG/20INT Helwalker even naked can already reach 34MIG/35INT, with:

- Thunderous Blows: +5 MIG

- Helwalker: +10 MIG

- Duality of Mortal Presence: +10 INT

- Clarity of Mind: +5 INT

 

And that's without items, drugs (up to +8 more) and Minor Avatar.

P.S. I was intending to build a Helwalker/FirePriest, and it's understandable that the main power comes from DoTs and maxing both MIG and INT to the, and above the roof ^^

 

 

EDITed to add: "while maxing them to the roof was affected by intrinsic diminishing returns"

 

Not actually true. By my calculations, while perception had diminishing returns, might, dex, int and con all had linear returns. Resolve actually had increasing returns, because deflection had increasing returns and resolve boosted deflection (similarly all the other stats have slightly increasing returns because they all boost a defense of some sort). As someone who did both triple crown solo and the ultimate achievements, the difference between a 19 resolve and a 20 base resolve can be a run-breaker (more so than 18 vs 19). Now, it is possible that to achieve really high levels in the stats you had to sacrifice a bunch where the net effect was diminishing returns, but the stats do not have "intrinsically" diminishing returns.

I do agree on deflection. It indeed had increasing returns. And in specific scenarios bumping RES could make a big difference. Although overall, I was and still am finding RES stat in PoE1 underwhelming.

 

Now regarding "intrinsic" - it's just a word that I use (haven't found a better one yet), to denote that the "relative" gain per point is going down the more you invest:

- from 10 MIG to 11 MIG: 1.03/1 = x1.03

- from 20 MIG to 21 MIG: 1.33/1.30 = x1.023

Quite often for an auto-attacker it's better to take 20 MIG and 11 DEX, than 21 MIG and 10 DEX. So even if a character selects 1-2 primary stats, he might want to smooth the stat-curve a bit instead of min-maxing too heavily.

The idea was to point that the game already has a very soft mechanism against putting all attribute points into one single stat.

 

historical fact: back in the day intellect used to boost radius instead of total area. that was stupidly increasing returns, which they eventually fixed. (hint: area = pi*r^2)

Yeah, I know of that. Josh has elaborated on this here.

And we have discussed this here.

 

Although the exact numbers discussed where +12-15% area per INT point; not +10%.

[Eelectrica]

I literally want an I win button for this absolutely horrible ship to ship combat section. Words can't describe how terrible it is.

In the end my only escape was Alt-F4.

Any chance this gets modded out or something. It makes no sense at all. A pointless interruption.

[Boeroer]

I would also be happy if I could just skip that stuff and simply board the enemy ship. Doesn't matter if the fight is a lot harder then.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Boeroer

[bleedthefreak]

I like what they are doing with the ship combat, but I feel like it takes too long to resolve a combat. Rather than feeling like an epic fight it feels like it's an obstacle to overcome, like a dungeon puzzle but less satisfying. I really think a proper 3D model (EDIT - Or even better, some sort of 2D/treasure map style flat battle plane with the ships and their locations being represented) of the combat taking place with the same text based options would feel a lot more engaging. It's incredibly hard to figure out what ship is facing where the way it is now, imo.

Edited April 2, 2018 by bleedthefreak

[AndreaColombo]

I agree ship combat is too long. I found it tedious and fairly hard. I’d rather be able to board the enemy ship and fight in-game or skip it altogether.

[BillyCorgan]

Same here.... too long for me, need an "escape" option... 

[thelee]

EDITed to add: "while maxing them to the roof was affected by intrinsic diminishing returns"

 

Not actually true. By my calculations, while perception had diminishing returns, might, dex, int and con all had linear returns. Resolve actually had increasing returns, because deflection had increasing returns and resolve boosted deflection (similarly all the other stats have slightly increasing returns because they all boost a defense of some sort). As someone who did both triple crown solo and the ultimate achievements, the difference between a 19 resolve and a 20 base resolve can be a run-breaker (more so than 18 vs 19). Now, it is possible that to achieve really high levels in the stats you had to sacrifice a bunch where the net effect was diminishing returns, but the stats do not have "intrinsically" diminishing returns.

I do agree on deflection. It indeed had increasing returns. And in specific scenarios bumping RES could make a big difference. Although overall, I was and still am finding RES stat in PoE1 underwhelming.

 

Now regarding "intrinsic" - it's just a word that I use (haven't found a better one yet), to denote that the "relative" gain per point is going down the more you invest:

- from 10 MIG to 11 MIG: 1.03/1 = x1.03

- from 20 MIG to 21 MIG: 1.33/1.30 = x1.023

Quite often for an auto-attacker it's better to take 20 MIG and 11 DEX, than 21 MIG and 10 DEX. So even if a character selects 1-2 primary stats, he might want to smooth the stat-curve a bit instead of min-maxing too heavily.

The idea was to point that the game already has a very soft mechanism against putting all attribute points into one single stat.

 

Agreed. I wasn't saying that Resolve was a decent stat, but because of its increasing returns there were thresholds where it could go from "underwhelming" to "amazing and absolutely critical."

 

I don't know what a better word is for "intrinsic" other than "when-you-are-multiplying-two-linear-stats-its-better-to-have-a-square-than-a-skinny-rectangle" but that's a mouthful . I mean, it's still technically not diminishing returns, but you are indeed shifting the curve around a bit.

[Phlox]

The subsequently created proficiency for Unarmed did not make it into this build, right?

[Boeroer]

It's in. Everybody gets it automatically.

Edited April 7, 2018 by Boeroer

[Phlox]

Thanks!

[Michael_Galt]

So, since I'm not seeing the answer here... if I wasn't a Fig backer, but buy the pre-purchase now on Steam... can I still get access to the beta??

 

Or, has that ship sailed? I would really like to just try out the character creation.

 

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Never mind.  Found the answer here: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/94318-welcome-to-the-deadfire-backer-beta/page-6

 

Looks like no character creation for me   Sad panda.

Edited April 8, 2018 by Michael_Galt

[IndiraLightfoot]

Hey guys!

 

Thanks for the thread and culmination of input. Ive tuned the devs onto this thread, and be aware that a lot of game mechanics have been gone over extensively and changed for clarity or missing info as launch approaches. A lot of work and polish is being done every day to ensure these systems are working correctly and I will continue to monitor the forums on how it all feels and see if it all makes sense, or work at those that may need some more love.

 

Thanks!

 

-Caleb

Alright, I may be overly optimistic here. But after reading this wonderful dev reply above in a beta thread over and over again, I actually interpret this "continue to monitor the forums on how it all feels and see if it all makes sense" as some pretty neat signal that we'll get one final beta update before launch. 

 

Please, be true!

[bleedthefreak]

I hate to say it, but I don't really read that in his post. And I'd be floored if we got another build. In fact, I'd be kind of upset - I'd rather they focused on the release build than put any more energy into the beta build. It was an awesome experience and I feel like we provided (as testers) tons of great feedback, much of which shaped what the game will be when we play it next month, but the beta is so separated from the main build that I'm sure it's no small feet to maintain/update it.

[urosdot]

Well. looks like we are going back to super stat(super race)... Might.... so boring.... having 5 companions with maxed out might...  good job! not...